Subject:
Was Sir Robert Menzies the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time...twice?Volkodav11/1/2009 4:26:14 AM

Australia did not begin full mobilisation (military and industrial) until early 1942 after Curtain took the Priministership. This was not because Curtain was a genius or a visionary but because he unlike Menzies thought it was better to something rather than nothing, infact a great many people of the time could probably have done better than Curtain.
The issue, as I see it is that Menzies ignored the threat and failed, inspite of all advice, failed to rearm or mobilise.
Upon being re-elected in 1948 he did the same thing again. He cancelled and delayed programs that would have been of great value to our forces in Korea and then emidiately after Korea, continued to cut existing and planned capabilities on the assuption our security was garanteed by others.
Again he got it wrong and Australia was forced to spend huge sums of money rebuilding from a lower base to fend of the threat of Communisum in SEA.
I do not argue that Menzies was an outstanding polititian but rather that he put his popularity and re-election before the security of the nation. Defence spending was not popular, financial sacrifice was not popular therefore he made the popular decissions to keep the majority of the people happy the majority of the time.
In many ways Howard, although he idolised Menzies, was more of a leader, visionary and above all better for Australia than Ming ever was.

Australia did not begin full mobilisation (military and industrial) until early 1942 after Curtain took the Priministership. This was not because Curtain was a genius or a visionary but because he unlike Menzies thought it was better to something rather than nothing, infact a great many people of the time could probably have done better than Curtain.

The issue, as I see it is that Menzies ignored the threat and failed, inspite of all advice, failed to rearm or mobilise.

Upon being re-elected in 1948 he did the same thing again. He cancelled and delayed programs that would have been of great value to our forces in Korea and then emidiately after Korea, continued to cut existing and planned capabilities on the assuption our security was garanteed by others.

Again he got it wrong and Australia was forced to spend huge sums of money rebuilding from a lower base to fend of the threat of Communisum in SEA.

I do not argue that Menzies was an outstanding polititian but rather that he put his popularity and re-election before the security of the nation. Defence spending was not popular, financial sacrifice was not popular therefore he made the popular decissions to keep the majority of the people happy the majority of the time.

In many ways Howard, although he idolised Menzies, was more of a leader, visionary and above all better for Australia than Ming ever was.

Curtain became PM in 1940 and didn't mobilise till 1942 due to the little incentive of the Japanese barrelling down South-East Asia to spur him on. Irrespective of which party was in power Australia was never going to mobilise into a war economy before that for the war in Europe, not least because we were trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to tensions with the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbour.

After WW2 everybody was cutting defence expenditure to try and pay off war debts. Even if we had kept it a bit higher it would have had no material impact on the outcome of Korea. We were a bit player in a clash of the titans.

Menzies was an outstanding Cold War PM for his steadfast opposition to communism in Australia and with our allies overseas, at a time when half of the Labor party would have had us as a southern partner in the Eastern Bloc. Thank goodness for him I say.

Menzies was an outstanding Cold War PM for his steadfast opposition to communism in Australia and with our allies overseas, at a time when half of the Labor party would have had us as a southern partner in the Eastern Bloc. Thank goodness for him I say.

Or reading between the lines, he chose to exaggerate (some would claim fabricate) an internal (cheap to combat as it wasn't real) threat, rather than invest in our defence forces to counter a very real external threat.

The reason the RAAF flew Meteors in Korea is because Menzies delayed the Sabre program in an attempt to find a British alternative. The reason our contribution to Korea was a light infantry battle group is because our regular Army consisted of little more than a three battalion light infantry brigade as Menzies canned the planned, complimentary, regular (combined arms) armoured brigade. The RAN FAA performed brilliantly in Korea and their reward, having vindicated the decision to form them in the first place, was to have Sydney's modernisation cancelled and Menzies announcing that they would cease fixed wing operations in the early 60's.

In a book I read on the Voyager disaster it was implied that Menzies held the military in disdain and saw their existence and prestige as a challenge to his authority.

It has been suggested that apart from his "Reds under the bed" type fear campaigns, the real reason he retained power for so long was a combination of Bob Santamaria splitting Labor and Menzies own ruthless cull of talent in his own party.

I stand corrected on the date Menzies loss of the Prime Ministership, I mis-read and article about Menzies and took his 1940 election victory as the defeat. You are wrong about the circumstances under which it occurred though. See link.

"On his return to Australia in May, and beset by dissension in his own party, Menzies offered to serve under Curtin in a national government, an invitation again rejected by Curtin despite pressure from within his own ranks, especially from Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, who wanted power at the first opportunity.

On 28 August Menzies resigned and Arthur Coles, who had temporarily rejoined the UAP, resigned in protest to revert to his independent status. The subsequent stopgap government led by Fadden lost power when Coles and the other independent, Alexander Wilson, crossed the floor of the House to secure the passage of a no-confidence vote on the Fadden Government's Budget by 36 votes to 33."

So one MP became an independent to protest against Menzies resignation and the other two crossed the floor because they didn't like the Fadden government's budget.

As for him Menzies not mobilising for the war in Europe, you will note from the table below that defence spending during the 1940-41 financial year was 14.7% of GDP, higher than at any time during WW1 when it only got to 12.5% of GDP in 1916-17. What more of a commitment did you expect him to make for a war on the other side of the world? I doubt that Curtin would have made more of a commitment had it not been for the Japanese invasion of SEA.

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I also note from the link about Curtain that the decision to send Australian troops to Singapore was made by Arther Fadden in consultation with Curtin while Menzies was overseas visiting Churchill. They would have been in contact with Menzies by wire and he was discussing the defence of Singapore in Britain, so it is pretty obvious that he would have been in agreement on the decision.

As for the state of our forces at the beginning of the Korean war, I would note that the ALP had progressively reduced military spending from 7.5% to 2.7% of GDP during their entirely three post-war financial years on power and they were in power for half of 1949-50 when it was 2%. It was a natural response post war for a country that had traditionally had very low peacetime GDP (0.4% after federation and as low as 0.6% in the 1930s depression), which was recovering from war debts and which faced no enemy which could pose a credible direct threat to Australia. There just wasn't any justification for armoured divisions for Australia at that time, irrespective of how much of a hobby horse of yours it is.

It wasn't until Korea that the West really started to take Communism seriously and Menzies increased military spending to 5.0% of GDP, which I think was a pretty damn decent contribution. Somehow I can't seen that Ben Chiefly would have done the same thing when half of his party were pinkos.

Still I suppose memories of Australia selling scrap metal to Japan before WWII have probably faded over the years.

and now there are growing resource sales to china... As that famous Aussie song goes "History never repeats - I tell myself before i go to sleep"

Yeah, lets not sell them anything so they have a really good reason to invade us to get the resources they need. http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emcrook.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />

Japans entry into WWII was primarily aimed at securing the resourses the US and others were refusing to trade with them.

And the reason for the trade embargo was the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. Why would the US and the European powers strengthen the Japanese hand by helping the Japanese empire to expand when their territories (the Philippines, French Indochina, Britain's Straits Settlements, the Dutch East Indies) lay in the path of possible Japanese invasion? Their fears proved to be prescient.